Earlier today it was revealed that a Russian oligarch paid $500,000 to Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, shortly after Cohen paid $130,000 to keep Stormy Daniels quiet, meaning that the Kremlin money pipeline to Trump has been exposed – or at least the tip of the iceberg. Shortly thereafter it was revealed that AT&T made a six figure payout to Michael Cohen as well, while Trump was in office. Now AT&T is now admitting that to having made the payment, meaning Trump has a whole new scandal.

AT&T has issued a statement acknowledging that it paid the “consulting” fee to Cohen in order to learn more about how to work with the Trump administration. That’s a flowery way of admitting that it bribed Cohen in order to gain influence over Trump. This bribe came just as the Trump administration was deciding whether to object to AT&T’s proposed merger. AT&T is admitting that Cohen provided no actual consulting or work in exchange for the payoff.

We’ll have to let the lawyers and judges and juries sort out where this falls on the legal scale. But in the court of public opinion, this is a straight up bribery scandal. Trump will have an extraordinarily difficult time trying to make the argument that he somehow didn’t know everyone from the Kremlin to AT&T was bribing his personal fixer. It gets worse.

Now comes the question of how deep the well goes. What other foreign and domestic entities have been gaining influence over Donald Trump by stuffing money into his fixer’s pockets now comes the question of how deep the well goes. What other foreign and domestic entities have been gaining influence over Donald Trump by paying off his closest associates? Have other Trump associates beyond Michael Cohen been bribed in this manner? We suspect we’ll begin to see those answers soon.